The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Anyone who is interested in medical history or medicine has probably heard of the immortal HeLa cells.

Now here is your chance to find out the real story behind the woman who “donated” her cells.

For those of you who know what happened, you know that Henrietta didn’t donate her cells. She wasn’t even asked. The cells were just taken because that’s what was done to poor black patients back in the segregated days.

While I knew the basic story (and her real name), I wasn’t as familiar with her as person, the exact circumstances of her disease and the cells named after her. This was the author’s obsession: to find out as much as she could about Henrietta and the circumstances of her cells.

While this was a very well written book, I didn’t enjoy it as much as other medical history books, but I would put it on my top ten must read medical history books.